Carbon nanoparticles aid blood-clotting

HOUSTON, Oct 21, 2005 (UPI via COMTEX) -- Carbon nanoparticles promote blood-clotting, say researchers at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and Ohio University.

The researchers examined the impact of various forms of carbon nanoparticles in a laboratory experiment on human platelets -- blood's principal clotting element -- and in a model of carotid artery thrombosis, or blockage, using anesthetized rats.

"We found that some carbon nanoparticles activate human platelets and stimulate them to aggregate, or clump together," study leader Dr. Marek Radomski, of the Center for Vascular Biology at the Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center. "We also demonstrate that the same nanoparticles stimulated blockage of the carotid artery in the rat model."

Nanoparticles, so tiny that they are measured in billionths of a meter, pass easily through the lungs and into the bloodstream, Radomski said.

The findings are published in the British Journal of Pharmacology.

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